Maldonado quickest on third day of Barcelona test

Pastor Maldonado was quickest for Williams on the third day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The Williams driver set his best time on super-soft tyres early in the session. His lap was three-tenths quicker than the fastest time seen at the test previously, set by Nico Hulkeberg.

Michael Schumacher was second-fastest for Mercedes, almost a full second slower than the Williams. Following the problems with the new W03 yesterday Schumacher completed a busy programme of well over 100 laps.

Third fastest was Kamui Kobayashi, who caused a red flag a few minutes before the lunch break when his car stopped during a fuel run-out test.

McLaren continued to pile on the laps with Jenson Button completing over 100 tours in the MP4-27. He was fourth-quickest ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso.

Mark Webber ended the day sixth but brought out the red flags with half an hour to go when his car stopped halfway around the lap.

The Ferrari of Felipe Massa spent a while in the pits in the morning due to a technical problem. He later emerged to set the seventh-fastest time, but caused the final red flag of the day, moments before the chequered flag was about to be shown, when he stopped while leaving the pits

Paul di Resta, Timo Glock and Vitaly Petrov completed the runners, with HRT absent and Lotus having returned to their factory earlier in the week.

The Force India driver lost part of his engine cover during the test. Glock, who had his first running of the year in last year’s car, carried out tyre comparison work and had a minor off which caused another red flag. Petrov was delayed by suspension problems in the Caterham.

The second test concludes at the circuit tomorrow, though the teams will return for a final four-day pre-season test next week.

THERE IS HOPE FOR WILLIAMS!!!!! That lap from Maldonaldo must have a full-bore qualifying lap beause it was 1/2 second faster than his fastest lap in qaulifying last year, a 1.22.8 which got him into Q2 and to 9th on the grid. Now taking into consideration that a) the cars have much less downforce and b) that was one of Maldonaldoâ€™s better qualifying spots, we can draw two conclusions. Either Williams have built a very fast car or the pace in F1 this year is exceptional, bearing in mind the downforce loss. Have faith, it looks like Williams have made a step up in qualifying trim.

this is testing, they may have run the car underweight. many teams ran times in preseason practise faster last year then in qualifying at Barcelona. and remember how quick mercedes were at the last test and many thought they would be good for pole in melbourne?

Yes, you are.
Williams was the only team (bar Caterham) that hadn’t run a flying lap.
They worked on the basics first as they have changed engines from last year (and I suspect that’s maybe Gillan’s style as McLaren used to act like that – take time to do it’s first fast lap).

No more than Hulkenberg & Perez from yesterday who were in the 22’s, Hulk and Ricciardo in the top 4 from Tuesday, and in the previous test Raikkonen stands out for me as surprisingly quick at the time and look whats happened there,
the difference here is that its the first time in the whole pre season Williams have shown any pace at all and proves what we all know that testing times dont really mean much…

This is Barcelona, not Jerez, where Barrichello set his time last year, looking for sponsorship. The time set today by Maldonado is respectable whatever the conditions and it is a sign that the work done by Bruno Senna and Valtteri (this one yesterday) start to bear fruit. I don’ t think Williams has a winning car, but surely has a car with some potential, clearly better than it seemed until now.

The real difference is the track. Last year in Barcelona Williams couldn’t do good lap times even with empty tanks and supersoft tyres. They did it only in Jerez, a track that doesn’ t represent the real worth of a F1 car. An example of this is the fact Lotus did well this year in Jerez and found the car was not good because of a problem in Barcelona. A problem that Jerez track had masked…

I’d like to point out, comparing Maldonado’s times from Quali in 2011, to testing this year are pointless because in the 2011 test at Barcelona, Kovalainen did a 1:23, whereas in Quali he only managed a 1:26

Even though it’s Barcelona, in terms of identifying which teams are where on raw pace, It’s still very anonymous with different teams on different programmes or similar programmes but at different times. Fuel loads & tyre compounds are proven to make this typical scenario very complex.

on hards and mediums… actually he pretty much matched Webber in runs of similar length and on the same compound…Button was even faster at times… but they really did spend much more time on the harder compounds, pretty much neglecting the softer ones…..we will probably know more after testing has ended….

I reckon it’s either smoke and mirrors or just stating the obvious- they might have the best car now, but if they didn’t improve it at all then there’s every likliehood that other teams would jump them.

@t3x Webber is one of the few drivers that tells it how it is. If he feels he is struggling within himself, like last year with the tyres, he admits it. If he feels he performed his best, and still wasn’t quick enough, he will say it. He is not a driver that makes excuses.

Just analysed a couple of runs of Mclaren and Red Bull. The most similar one I could find were ones that appeared to be simulations of the second stint (after 11 laps before pitting) both on the hard tyre.

Webber’s average time: 1:29.353 (15 laps)
Jenson’s average time: 1:29.277 (15 laps)
(Both runs were actually 16 laps but Webber had a very slow last lap so i didn’t include them)

Interestingly, Webber started the stint quicker, but fell off towards the end.

Well based on the fact that they both seemed to be simulations of a second stint after 11 laps in their first stints, you would assume they were quite similar. Maybe a small difference, but I would would say no more than a couple of 10ths of a second per laps worth.

It seems they do have problems. Might be smoke and mirrors but its good acting if it is. Mclaren seems incredibly confident but then they normally do. I genuinely think RBR are really concerned (although I’m not that sure they need to be). Really weird day of testing

Also change of plan, RBR are running a day later with Ferrari at the next test now… logistics…. really?????

I really want to know why they are changing the plans. Are they worried? Is it a bluff.. or a double bluff? Ooohhhh I really want Melbourne to come soon as poss and see where everyone is. These test dates are too much of a tease.

I think its wrong in a way, that if you can attend the scheduled test then you either attend or dont. But no rescheduling unless its pivital (e.g. safety reasons) and not just to hide things from others if that is the case or because something isnt working as intended.

Intriguing quote from Button:
“But there will definitely be something new for Melbourne. We have an update on the car for the first race. It is not a completely straightforward update as it is not about bolting downforce on the car â€“ it is slightly more than that.”

Could be that Engine mapping that F1Enigma posted about earlier today.. All teams have found a way to circumvent the rules and create a EBD event from engine mapping. All speculation at this point, but all of the top teams seem now to be trying to change their testing schedules at the next test.

That lap from Maldonaldo must have a full-bore qualifying lap beause it was 1/2 second faster than his fastest lap in qaulifying last year, a 1.22.8 which got him into Q2 and to 9th on the grid. Now taking into consideration that a) the cars have much less downforce and b) that was one of Maldonaldo’s better qualifying spots, we can draw two conclusions. Either Williams have built a very fast car or the pace in F1 this year is exceptional, bearing in mind the downforce loss.

Also consider super-soft tyres and weather conditions. It makes the picture a bit not so exceptional. But still – looking not that bad at all for Williams, if they are succeeding at solving reported slow corner behavior issues.

In the end, someone will be first and someone will be last…HRT will be last for sure, Marussia next…then it will start to get interesting…Caterham or maybe Williams next? Fixing Williams’ problems in one year and making them fight near the front of the midfield isn’t going to happen…the midfield will be the ones to watch this year as they will all be very close and points will be worth more than 1 million pounds…maybe 100 million pounds! The big question is, will Mercedes jump up to third this year as planned…if they do, they will be knocking Ferrari down to fourth…very sad for me.

I think we actually might have Mercedes moving forward at the expense of Ferrari.

On one side we have the team that is continuing it’s evolution and which is came up with an very well thought pre-season programme, emphasizing the importance of tyre knowledge and working late to fine-tune the developing of the car which they started designing earlier than most front-runners (given the nature of championship). And it’s looking good for them in terms of reliability etc. Seems that some pace is there as well, a solid foundation all things considered.

On the other side we have the team that is revolutionising and which came up with lots of brand new solutions for their car, more complex etc. It is not going extremely well for them, by the look of things. They are getting their heads around car at the moment and learning tyre behaviour\building tyre model at the same time. They are more or less reliable (usually they are more reliable, you have to admit), but nothing eye-catching in terms of pace. And both of the drivers already stated that the package needs improvement.

I think Red Bull and McLaren are about to hold their ground as the two fastest teams, but Mercedes may well find themselves just filling that small gap between those two and Ferrari.

The best case scenario would be having 4 top cars within 0.5s of each other in no particular order. That’s what i’m hoping for.

And, of course, there’s no solid facts to prove me right or wrong. Just a conclusion from extensively reading the observations of other people :)

Oh and also an answer to why they chose Renault over Cosworth (this was discussed in the roundup comments earlier this week):

The installation of the engine into the car has also opened up some design scope according to Gillan. â€ťThe Renault engine differs in a number of ways to the Cosworth, it has opened up a lot more flexibility in terms of mapping and it allows us to run a lot hotter with the water and oil which an aerodynamic point of view it is much better. Now we can close up the bodywork a bit. The RS27 also has less degradation with mileage in terms of the engine life.